


Field Experiments

by mavhe5



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Infidelity is a thing, Izaya has a god complex, Izaya has unhealthy obsessions, Love triangles never end well, Multi, Shinra analyzes everything, Shinra isn't a ditz, Shinra won't let anything get in the way of his marriage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 05:43:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6942178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mavhe5/pseuds/mavhe5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Izaya likens himself to a god. Shinra has a habit of crushing this ideology, systematically, with the way he picks every little thing apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Field Experiments

            Ikebukuro is an enchanting town—bustling with a never-ending stream of traffic, a city of lights that never sleeps.  Rush hour settles only for the darkest of the night, the times when, instead, something far more sinister and foreboding makes itself known amongst the streets, within narrow alleyways lined with copper bricks and grime of the darkness that hasn't had its taste of the light in centuries or millennia.  It is about these walls that something dark brews, growing and expanding, staining the landscape of the town a vivid crimson of lives lost, mankind turning on mankind, creature against hellion.  Those who reside here refer to it as a twisted love, something filthy and lined with scales of a serpent determined to tear union apart.  (As if they do not deserve happiness.)

            It is within this place, this sick isolation from the rest of the world and its serenity, that monsters crawl: a black bike that never makes a sound, a parasite with a penchant for prying—these are only to name a few of the monstrosities that lurk within shadows, their imprint left in the city.  The underground is a dark and deep ensnarement; those who fall into the intricate webs of it may grasp at sticky fibers, may make their desperate attempts at escape, to no avail.

            Everyone resident to Ikebukuro knows—no one can escape the greedy and meticulous dactyls of the mysterious and ever-changing city.  (More, more, more, and it will never be enough to satiate the curiosity of twisted minds that involve themselves within this hellish world.)  Some refer to it as a tourist trap, with hooks burying themselves under layers of flesh and muscle, embedding a part of itself within the very souls of those who find themselves too invested in the local occurrences.

 

            He pays little mind to the world that spins around him, continues to rotate and revolve without his interference.  There is an insignificance to his gait, the way his footfalls thud to the pavement displaying his utter carelessness as he waltzes about—the lights are familiar, and he blends into the peculiar surroundings, with the lab coat that flaps against his calves, ensnares his slender frame in a protective and comforting embrace.  Fingers find themselves buried in the depths of pockets, reminiscent of a mindlessly innocent gesture; he has memorized the intricate twists and turns of the mapping of the city—he turns on heels to a corner, disappears into the blackness of it, emerges from the other side.  Kishitani Shinra is a mystery in himself, as described by Orihara Izaya.  Someone inconceivable.  A mind unfathomable.  No interest is held in his mind for the happenings of the outside world; if he is fine, everything is fine.  No matter how unethical, impractical his methods, he places no significant care in this fact.

            It is around the sharp edges of brick layering that he finds the job at hand about the filth that lines itself along concrete; repugnant, the stench of waist and sewage backed up and spilling from drains in a city far passed its capacity.  This does not bother him.  Rather, he kneels at the side of the man wheezing, clutching at the wound in the center right of his chest.  (They are not the only two in the area.  He can feel prying eyes observing his movements, boring through the back of his skull as if seeking eye contact through burned holes, studying.  It’s nothing discreet.)

            “Aah… Izaya-kun knows I prefer working in a clean environment.  Look at this mess!  Hey, don’t give me that.  You only added to it!”  His tone chimes, cheery and content despite the grim environment, and a tune is whistled; the case at his side drops and clicks open, revealing an array of medical tools at his disposal.  “Now, if you make a sound, I’ll have to nix those vocals.  This isn't exactly legal, you know! I prefer house calls, but you have some kind of guardian angel somewhere looking out for you.”  Shinra has yet to dignify the third presence with an acknowledgement.  Peroxide spills itself over into the open and exposed wound, bubbling as it sanitizes, searing into muscle spread bare for the cruel world to witness.  A scalpel lifts, digs itself into the shredded flesh—

            From somewhere, a scream can be heard cutting off into a gurgle.

 

            “Guardian angel?”  Soft comes the jeer from within shadows, sinister and tickled at the display, as if it were a play set in motion merely for his amusement.  Harsh light of the street illuminates the angular features of the broker’s countenance, painting them wicked and cruel as he so often is mistaken for.  (Shinra knows better.  It isn’t cruelty.  It’s just how Izaya is.)  The amicable grin painted across Shinra's expression still doesn't falter—if anything, it grows at the reveal, long-awaited as it is.  “I never took you for the superstitious type.”

            “Oh, no, I’m not,” the doctor quips, lilt in intonation, as if condescending with none of the intention.  It’s the way he carries himself, aloof, too distant to be grasped by minds which orient themselves with mankind.  “But wording it that way is much better than, ‘Wow, if Orihara Izaya sent for help, you must really be in too deep,’ wouldn't you agree?”  Such words don’t come with hints of insult; it is naught but honesty, brutal and characteristic, to be expected of the surgeon come this point in their acquaintance.

            “Touché.”

            These exchanges are nothing unheard of.  Their contact comes in indirect meetings, in purposeful coincidences, in stirred occurrences spurred on by none other than the pesky broker himself.  Izaya focuses on picking dirt from the fur that tickles his nose when he turns his head; Shinra, on drowning devices in peroxide, drying them on starch white coat to be stored away within the case that hangs at his side once more.  It is without another word that they part ways—no promises for further meetings, nor assurance that they will meet again at all.  (As if they would require such needless words.  It is inevitable that they will cross paths, with the respective careers that they have embraced.  The underworld is the underworld is the underworld, where everyone knows everyone that is anyone, and none can escape the writhing shadows that infuse life into the ever-changing society.)

**Author's Note:**

> The rating of this will eventually go up but for now it's staying at teen+.
> 
> Special thanks to my friend Avi for beta reading.


End file.
